The results of a traumatic brain injury upon a person's cognition - the capability to think and learn - may be so overwhelming that the survivor literally struggles to obtain through each day rear ended in florida. Barbara Webster has led hundreds of support groups for the BIA of Massachusetts and is all too acquainted with the struggles, frustrations and difficulties of rebuilding your life after a head injury.
She knows first hand what it's like to possess your life change dramatically after she escaped from the car crash with what everyone thought were minor injuries. Suddenly she was unable to perform her job or manage her household. Even the absolute most simple tasks such as choosing her clothes each day, cooking supper or making a food list felt overwhelming and sent her back again to bed. The harder she tried, the more stuck and frustrated she became.
Unsure the explanation for her cognitive difficulties, she became so depressed she feared she was going crazy and even contemplated suicide. The night she went along to a parents' meeting at school and heard a guest speaker discuss brain injury was the beginning of turning her life around. She went along to her first support group meeting for survivors and realized that her cognitive difficulties could be associated with her earlier car accident and her so called "mild" brain injury. Most of all, she discovered that there clearly was help and support available. Bringing her husband to a support group meeting helped him understand the explanation for her difficulties and gave him a fresh perspective about that which was wrong. He realized, "It wasn't her fault" It had been the top injury that has been causing her to act and think the way she was.
Barbara Webster's story continues to be too common. There's nothing "mild" about a brain injury. Because she only lost consciousness for moments and had no physical injuries after her car crash, her brain injury wasn't diagnosed until many several months later. After all, she looked fine. But looks may be deceiving.
Trauma to the mind can result in a wide variety of physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral changes. But it's the cognitive changes - the capability to process information, problem solve, make decisions, use sound judgment, take notice and remember events and details - that so frequently feel overwhelming for the individual. Household members often feel confused, frustrated, and even angered by the changes and can't understand what has happened. It can literally feel just like one's life - all that has been known and familiar - has been lost. Finding and reclaiming one's life starts with the diagnosis of a brain injury. The next thing is finding experts and therapists that are experienced and can provide treatment and rehabilitation services, design compensatory strategies, give counseling, and extend support. Recovery is a procedure and a trip that involves the individual as well as their family. Barbara Webster can attest to the significance of hope, information, support and resources on brain injury to be able to find, reclaim and rebuild one's life.
